Microbiology Expansion is a new mod: scanners, microbes to discover on other planets, and a Codex to fill. It also comes with ribbons for Final Frontier, the mod that keeps your kerbals' medals and history. I wanted both in my career, so first they went into my test install.
What the machine found
I ran the game twice without a screen, with and without the new mods, and compared the logs. Nothing broke, but Final Frontier complained 205 times: the ribbon file was written in a format it can't read, so none of the mod's ribbons showed up. Converting the file fixed it. Of the 34 ribbons described, only 12 have pictures so far, so those 12 went in and the rest wait, ready to switch on. Final Frontier went from 112 to 124 ribbons.
One catch: the first test of the fix, set up by Claudinho, my AI intern (Claude, by Anthropic), "passed" without proving anything. It only ran to the main menu, and Final Frontier's code reads the ribbons only when a save is loaded. The second test loaded a save and counted them.
What only I found
Then I played it for half an hour. The ribbons work, and "First Duna Life Detected" went to Podfurt Kerman. But three things showed up that no log would ever show:
the discovery message shows a
tag as plain text on screen;the radial scanner sinks halfway into the capsule;
it's too easy: five microbes in about three minutes, without leaving the launch pad.
I sent the ribbon fix as a pull request and the other three as issues, with screenshots and a few balance ideas. GrandAdmiralCrunch fixed all of it in version 0.2.1, nine days later: the ribbon file went in as I sent it, the message now uses the Codex green, and the scanner sits on the hull. The recharge time and power cost of the scanner became settings, and the bigger ideas are planned for 0.3. The changelog thanks me on all three fixes, which made my week. And the source is on GitHub now, so anyone can help.
The only crash of the night was mine
I forgot to put a ladder on the ship. When my scientist couldn't climb back to the lab after the EVA, I tried to tip the ship so he could reach the hatch. It tipped a little more than planned, and the scanner exploded. Human playtests find bugs the machine can't, and they make their own.
If you like this kind of bug hunt, a coffee keeps the hunter awake. ☕🚀
🇧🇷 Em português: testei o Microbiology Expansion antes de pôr na carreira. O teste sem tela achou o problema das fitas do Final Frontier (205 avisos; nenhuma fita aparecia), e a correção levou de 112 para 124 fitas. Mas foi jogando que eu achei o que nenhum log mostra: a tag de cor escrita na tela, o scanner afundado na cápsula e a coleta fácil demais. Mandei tudo ao autor (um PR e três issues), e ele corrigiu tudo na versão 0.2.1, com um agradecimento no changelog. E o único acidente da noite foi meu: esqueci a escada, tentei inclinar a nave para o cientista voltar, e ela tombou.
Some Links:
Microbiology Expansion: https://github.com/GrandAdmiralCrunch/MicrobiologyExpansion
Version 0.2.1: https://github.com/GrandAdmiralCrunch/MicrobiologyExpansion/releases/tag/v0.2.1
The ribbon fix (PR #2): https://github.com/GrandAdmiralCrunch/MicrobiologyExpansion/pull/2
Issues #3–#5: https://github.com/GrandAdmiralCrunch/MicrobiologyExpansion/issues?q=author%3Acelino